Answer to Question #205521 in Sociology for Jade

Question

1 Briefly discuss what is meant by culture from a sociological perspective. Provide

ONE example of how cultural misunderstandings could be a challenge/problem in the classroom. (4)

Answer 1

Culture encompasses everything of a society's symbols, language, beliefs, values, and artifacts. Culture is a crucial topic in the sociological view since it shapes people's ideas and behavior. It has an impact on not only language but also on the gestures we make when interacting, the distance we stand from each other when talking, and the values we believe are most essential for our children to learn, to name a few. We couldn't have a society without culture.

In the classroom, cultural misunderstandings could be a problem. There were very few visible student misunderstandings during the course of general conversations. When collaborative effort is required, this multiplies tremendously. The pupils naturally separate themselves in general encounters. Students from similar ethnic origins prefer to sit together and engage with one another in their mother tongue when the teacher is absent from the classroom. During group work, however, the instructor divides the students into smaller groups and requires them to collaborate with people from various backgrounds. Even in these situations, when a five-person group includes two Chinese students, the students tend to gravitate toward one another. Over the course of the time period, an observational review of all group tasks reveals at least one or more misunderstandings that may be attributable to cultural differences. These misunderstandings are usually classified as verbal or nonverbal communication misunderstandings. There was a lot of frustration between peer groups in some circumstances. Although the frustration does not appear to be hostile, impatience was visible when group members were having difficulty communicating their ideas. Some groups were more open to their own feelings than others when I asked them about their differences. When approached by the researcher, the Chinese group tended to internalize these problems more and were less interested in expressing their views or positions.